Category: Fiction

The TellTale Tale

3

So a month ago I applied for a game writer position at TellTale games.

I would KILL to write for Telltale. I’ve already written about why I think their take on The Walking Dead was game of the year for 2012 and the writing talent they have already is incredible. I can maybe think of only one or two other places (Bungie or 343 etc) where I would want to be a part of creating stories.

They wanted screenwriting samples which is perfectly reasonable. However their disclaimer (which I’m sure is industry standard) indemnified them should they ever create something completely identical to my writing samples. Meaning if I gave them something original but unpublished, it was essentially theirs in perpetuity.

Again, this is in a lot of ways a completely industry standard thing for writers. The companies you want to write for have to know you can write. In return should they ever in the history of ever make something slightly similar to what you provide them as a sample, if they don’t hire you they certainly don’t want to get sued. That’s not unreasonable. But it does represent a dilemma for writers who have a published body of work but not in the specific format they are demanding.

My problem, as a writer, was with their particular use of the word “Identical” in their writing sample agreement. To wit from the actual public job application site:

“By applying for the position and submitting any writing sample (the “Sample”) to Telltale, Inc. (“Telltale”), you understand and acknowledge that Telltale is constantly developing in-house ideas, formats, stories, concepts, artwork and the like (collectively, “Creative Elements”), and that many such Creative Elements developed by Telltale now or in the future may be similar to or identical to those contained in your Sample.  You agree that Telltale will not be held liable for any such similarities and that Telltale’s use or development of Creative Elements similar to or identical with any material or elements (including Creative Elements) contained in the Sample shall not obligate Telltale to you in any manner.  In connection with your agreement to these terms, you expressly waive any claims you may have against Telltale arising from or relating to your submission of the Sample.”

Emphasis mine.  Again perfectly standard disclaimer. But I have several unpublished scripts and things in development that I would not want to have put under this disclaimer, but that represent my best work. What to do?

Well it’s been a month, and I’ve not heard a peep from them so I assume it didn’t work out. So I thought I would share with you how I handled the situation. I created two short screenplays that both addressed what I thought was a good representation of my abilities, without the content being something that would ever be a thing that they would make a game out of. Perhaps it was too clever by half, but I sure had fun writing it. I thought readers and other writers might want to see my solution to the “identical” problem. Please to enjoy, The TellTale Tales.

 

Part 1 (PDF)

 

Part 2 (PDF)

New Short Story; Buddy’s Eye

7

Tonight I released a 30 page short story to Amazon Kindle called Buddy’s Eye. It’s the first story set in a much larger universe and I am very proud of it. It’s priced at $2.99 and you can get it here.

You can sample it through Kindle but I also wanted to make it available for the same price here if you want. Just click on the donate button to the upper right and I will be happy to send you a .PDF or .MOBI of the story.

Here’s a preview of the first bit of the story:

 

 

 

“Is he ready?”

[WE HAVE TOLD HIM AS MUCH AS IS POSSIBLE. WE HAVE TAUGHT HIM AS MUCH AS IS POSSIBLE.]

“Is he ready?”

[HE IS READY. HE WILL SOON HAVE A COMPANION. WE HOPE FOR HIM. HE IS A FRESH NEW LIFE. HIS MIND IS FILLED WITH WHAT YOU CALL LOVE. HE IS UNLIKE ANYTHING IN OUR EXPERIENCE.]

“You found him. It was your idea to use him.”

[WE FOUND HIM LIKE WE FOUND YOU. WE USE HIM LIKE WE USE YOU. YOU BOTH HAVE BEEN GIVEN GIFTS. THERE SIMPLY IS NO MORE TIME. WE HAVE DONE WHAT WE HAVE DONE.]

“So that we all may live.”

[SO THAT WE ALL MAY LIVE.]

-A conversation on the planet Mars.

***

Buddy smelled like popcorn, Klevik’s mother always said. Klevik had never had true popcorn, nor was he certain his mother had either. Klevik would bury his head in Buddy’s fur and breathe deeply, trying to understand his scent. To him, Buddy smelled like dry air filters. He smelled heat and life and love in Buddy’s fur, but it smelled mostly like air filters. His mother insisted it was a popcorn smell.

She had a silly song she would hum or sing to Buddy whenever he was around. She tried to sing it again to him with her last breath, as Klevik sat next to her in the hospital. He was in a stupor of fatigue and grief. His mother had spent her last few days detailing for him as best she could what she knew of the location and defense rings encircling the asteroid base his father had made as a home for them. It was called Buddy’s Eye.

Buddy was a golden retriever.

***

Decades later, the entire solar system was tearing itself apart in civil war while Klevik parked a heavily armed corvette a hundred kilometers away from Buddy’s Eye. He’d been gone for twenty five years. Now he was back home. Almost.

The corvette was officially named Long Hammer. Not a bad name as names go, but Klevik had already decided on a new name: Iiyama. It would be a while before he would be able to paint and rechristen the stolen Sol Defense Force attack ship, but they were unlikely to miss it with their current travails losing a war to the chrome lepers. Besides, he had already changed all the internal computerized ident broadcasts with a manufactured ship registry and the new name. That mattered more than someone getting close enough to see the paint job.

Iiyama. It was a name his father would have chosen, with his love of old Earth Japan. He was obsessed with names, Klevik’s father, and believed they spoke to the soul of individual things.

The center command chair almost swallowed Klevik as the holoprojection of the asteroid loomed in front of him. Under normal circumstances the bridge of a ship this size would have a four person crew with another five at other parts of the ship, but he’d managed to automate enough systems that he was able to steal the ship himself. Besides, he didn’t want any partners in this particular venture. Stealing an SDF corvette made for a type of business partner well outside Klevik’s comfort zone.

Although an older ship, the Iiyama was actually fresh off the Ganymede shipyard refit line. Given her previous name, she was ironically christened. Squat, only slightly longer horizontally than vertically, with her weapons mostly suited towards interdiction of supply ships and the typical small pirate vessels that used to plague the Belt when Klevik was younger. Visually she was more anvil than hammer. It was one of the reasons he chose the ship: it very much resembled the ones that broke up his father’s pirate fleet twenty five years ago.

Klevik was a Belter. He wasn’t modified either genetically or mechanically. He was quite literally a dying breed. A Belter at forty years old was like one of the Earth clan newborn at one hundred and twenty. No, his wasn’t a political or religious choice, like it was for a few fringe cases. He was simply too old for genetic modification out here in the Belt, and no one Beltside had chrome at a price he could afford. Never mind that the benefits would still be needed to have started from birth to be the most effective.

Klevik didn’t care about the war outside the Belt. He did have a very vested interest in his own survival, and that’s what brought him back here to his home, to where he grew up. Not to mention nearing forty and starting to acutely feel his age, he wondered about his father’s research project so long ago. Potential secrets in the rock.

The asteroid sat still in the projection before him. Decades before, his father had stopped its natural rotation. The mining and modifications caused a sheen of dust to form in a small circular cloud around the two kilometer wide rock. It looked like a light brown iris around the black pupil of the asteroid’s dark side.

It looked like one of Buddy’s eyes.

***

Klevik was six years old when his father surprised him with a golden retriever puppy for Christmas. The initial work had just been completed on what would become their home, their safe place. Within the solid rock of the asteroid, a ring rotated to create gravity. The asteroid’s own slow spin, ineffective at creating a strong gravity field, had been stilled by rocket motors a year before. They remained in place to fire occasionally and assist in the ring rotation.

The new graviton manipulators—developed on Earth and replicated independently in the Enclaves—were too expensive for the Belt. As mounting tensions meant the first priority was the military, the remote slow turning asteroids of the Belt were left by the wayside for the application of such technology. So his father had improvised. The ring had been spun up to near Earth gravity over the past week while the family sat in the spartan and cold metal framework. They’d fashioned a living area for themselves with a few mattresses and a threadbare couch. The room was cramped but comfortable enough.

“This is just for a while,” his father said, “these are what will become emergency shelters if we ever need them.” Eventually they built out proper living areas.

The Christmas tree that day was a hologram but a convincing one, complete with fake pine scent. Klevik had never smelled natural pine, but he knew it meant Christmas. His mother had grown up with the simulated sights and smells of holidays and had instilled them in her son too. Were it any old style celebration on Earth he would have been right at home with the traditions. Projected tinsel hung on the metal walls; they had the nice old couch to sit on. There were presents wrapped in festive colors, and some of them were real, not projections. When one box under the tree kept shifting and had a conspicuous sound and smell, Klevik opened it first. A Puppy.

His father in the end was furious at the name. “Buddy? Buddy? Naming a companion is one of the most important choices we have,” His father fumed to Klevik’s mother while the boy held the squirming golden in his hands. He knew he’d somehow let his father down.

“You wanted this thing originally for your purposes,” his mother said, both annoyed and amused, “You should have chosen the name if you wanted something majestic.”

“What I wanted was something that speaks to his purpose.” His father replied, already relenting. “Buddy…it’s not a name that strikes terror in people’s hearts, or inspires hope or–” he trailed off.

For his part, Klevik had simply chosen the first name that popped into his head upon seeing the beautiful dog.

“But maybe, ‘Buddy’ is the dog’s purpose,” his mother said.

“You’re sure this is the name you want?” His father asked Klevik.

Klevik nodded.

“So be it. But you have to clean up after it.” His father said.

“Seems to me you both should clean up after him, since he’s for both of you. Besides, it’s easier now that the gravity is on,” Klevik’s mother said softly, “You’ve had the poor thing in stasis for a week.” She looked at the puppy and smiled. “He is a handsome dog.”

And so Buddy came into Klevik’s life. Bright eyes, a toothful grin, and reddish blond hair: that was Buddy the golden retriever. The cost to bring him to the asteroid was astronomical. The pleasure he brought Klevik’s family more than made up for it. Despite his initial reaction to the name, his father grew to like it as it suited the dog’s playful nature.

It was a good life. In many ways Klevik’s father was a visionary. He foresaw the lax protections in the Belt, the loose black market economy that allowed the mining industry to function, and where he could both legitimize and exploit his position. But Klevik’s father, unlike Klevik’s mother, was not born in the Belt. He was born on Mars. Klevik’s father had fled that planet, after having everything his parents had worked for ripped out from under him by the new government during the Mars Colony Revolt. He was not going to ever let himself be put in a position of uncertainty again.

A year after that Christmas, Klevik’s father tossed a ball against a bulkhead and Buddy snatched it in midair to bring it to him. As the dog stood up to face Klevik’s father, sitting in his new favorite chair in his study, he grasped Buddy by the face and studied the dog’s eyes intently. Buddy’s tail wagged in great sweeps as Klevik’s father smiled and said “Buddy’s Eye.”

“What?” Klevik’s mother asked.

“His eyes look like our home when we approach from the far side dock, that light brown dust circle. I’ve been thinking of a name for a while now. This is our home as well as a base of operations. It’s where we’re safe. I’ve been trying to find something mysterious or majestic to name it but what I think of always sounds so pretentious,” he laughed. “But I’ve got it: We will call our home Buddy’s Eye.”

“What about striking terror into the hearts of people? Or some academic name inspiring hope?” she chided.

“Now I’m thinking a little misdirection might be in order,” he winked at her.

***

 

If you liked this preview of the story, please buy it on Kindle or use the donate button above to get the rest!

New Short Story; Buddy’s Eye

7

Tonight I released a 30 page short story to Amazon Kindle called Buddy’s Eye. It’s the first story set in a much larger universe and I am very proud of it. It’s priced at $2.99 and you can get it here.

You can sample it through Kindle but I also wanted to make it available for the same price here if you want. Just click on the donate button to the upper right and I will be happy to send you a .PDF or .MOBI of the story.

Here’s a preview of the first bit of the story:

 

 

 

“Is he ready?”

[WE HAVE TOLD HIM AS MUCH AS IS POSSIBLE. WE HAVE TAUGHT HIM AS MUCH AS IS POSSIBLE.]

“Is he ready?”

[HE IS READY. HE WILL SOON HAVE A COMPANION. WE HOPE FOR HIM. HE IS A FRESH NEW LIFE. HIS MIND IS FILLED WITH WHAT YOU CALL LOVE. HE IS UNLIKE ANYTHING IN OUR EXPERIENCE.]

“You found him. It was your idea to use him.”

[WE FOUND HIM LIKE WE FOUND YOU. WE USE HIM LIKE WE USE YOU. YOU BOTH HAVE BEEN GIVEN GIFTS. THERE SIMPLY IS NO MORE TIME. WE HAVE DONE WHAT WE HAVE DONE.]

“So that we all may live.”

[SO THAT WE ALL MAY LIVE.]

-A conversation on the planet Mars.

***

Buddy smelled like popcorn, Klevik’s mother always said. Klevik had never had true popcorn, nor was he certain his mother had either. Klevik would bury his head in Buddy’s fur and breathe deeply, trying to understand his scent. To him, Buddy smelled like dry air filters. He smelled heat and life and love in Buddy’s fur, but it smelled mostly like air filters. His mother insisted it was a popcorn smell.

She had a silly song she would hum or sing to Buddy whenever he was around. She tried to sing it again to him with her last breath, as Klevik sat next to her in the hospital. He was in a stupor of fatigue and grief. His mother had spent her last few days detailing for him as best she could what she knew of the location and defense rings encircling the asteroid base his father had made as a home for them. It was called Buddy’s Eye.

Buddy was a golden retriever.

***

Decades later, the entire solar system was tearing itself apart in civil war while Klevik parked a heavily armed corvette a hundred kilometers away from Buddy’s Eye. He’d been gone for twenty five years. Now he was back home. Almost.

The corvette was officially named Long Hammer. Not a bad name as names go, but Klevik had already decided on a new name: Iiyama. It would be a while before he would be able to paint and rechristen the stolen Sol Defense Force attack ship, but they were unlikely to miss it with their current travails losing a war to the chrome lepers. Besides, he had already changed all the internal computerized ident broadcasts with a manufactured ship registry and the new name. That mattered more than someone getting close enough to see the paint job.

Iiyama. It was a name his father would have chosen, with his love of old Earth Japan. He was obsessed with names, Klevik’s father, and believed they spoke to the soul of individual things.

The center command chair almost swallowed Klevik as the holoprojection of the asteroid loomed in front of him. Under normal circumstances the bridge of a ship this size would have a four person crew with another five at other parts of the ship, but he’d managed to automate enough systems that he was able to steal the ship himself. Besides, he didn’t want any partners in this particular venture. Stealing an SDF corvette made for a type of business partner well outside Klevik’s comfort zone.

Although an older ship, the Iiyama was actually fresh off the Ganymede shipyard refit line. Given her previous name, she was ironically christened. Squat, only slightly longer horizontally than vertically, with her weapons mostly suited towards interdiction of supply ships and the typical small pirate vessels that used to plague the Belt when Klevik was younger. Visually she was more anvil than hammer. It was one of the reasons he chose the ship: it very much resembled the ones that broke up his father’s pirate fleet twenty five years ago.

Klevik was a Belter. He wasn’t modified either genetically or mechanically. He was quite literally a dying breed. A Belter at forty years old was like one of the Earth clan newborn at one hundred and twenty. No, his wasn’t a political or religious choice, like it was for a few fringe cases. He was simply too old for genetic modification out here in the Belt, and no one Beltside had chrome at a price he could afford. Never mind that the benefits would still be needed to have started from birth to be the most effective.

Klevik didn’t care about the war outside the Belt. He did have a very vested interest in his own survival, and that’s what brought him back here to his home, to where he grew up. Not to mention nearing forty and starting to acutely feel his age, he wondered about his father’s research project so long ago. Potential secrets in the rock.

The asteroid sat still in the projection before him. Decades before, his father had stopped its natural rotation. The mining and modifications caused a sheen of dust to form in a small circular cloud around the two kilometer wide rock. It looked like a light brown iris around the black pupil of the asteroid’s dark side.

It looked like one of Buddy’s eyes.

***

Klevik was six years old when his father surprised him with a golden retriever puppy for Christmas. The initial work had just been completed on what would become their home, their safe place. Within the solid rock of the asteroid, a ring rotated to create gravity. The asteroid’s own slow spin, ineffective at creating a strong gravity field, had been stilled by rocket motors a year before. They remained in place to fire occasionally and assist in the ring rotation.

The new graviton manipulators—developed on Earth and replicated independently in the Enclaves—were too expensive for the Belt. As mounting tensions meant the first priority was the military, the remote slow turning asteroids of the Belt were left by the wayside for the application of such technology. So his father had improvised. The ring had been spun up to near Earth gravity over the past week while the family sat in the spartan and cold metal framework. They’d fashioned a living area for themselves with a few mattresses and a threadbare couch. The room was cramped but comfortable enough.

“This is just for a while,” his father said, “these are what will become emergency shelters if we ever need them.” Eventually they built out proper living areas.

The Christmas tree that day was a hologram but a convincing one, complete with fake pine scent. Klevik had never smelled natural pine, but he knew it meant Christmas. His mother had grown up with the simulated sights and smells of holidays and had instilled them in her son too. Were it any old style celebration on Earth he would have been right at home with the traditions. Projected tinsel hung on the metal walls; they had the nice old couch to sit on. There were presents wrapped in festive colors, and some of them were real, not projections. When one box under the tree kept shifting and had a conspicuous sound and smell, Klevik opened it first. A Puppy.

His father in the end was furious at the name. “Buddy? Buddy? Naming a companion is one of the most important choices we have,” His father fumed to Klevik’s mother while the boy held the squirming golden in his hands. He knew he’d somehow let his father down.

“You wanted this thing originally for your purposes,” his mother said, both annoyed and amused, “You should have chosen the name if you wanted something majestic.”

“What I wanted was something that speaks to his purpose.” His father replied, already relenting. “Buddy…it’s not a name that strikes terror in people’s hearts, or inspires hope or–” he trailed off.

For his part, Klevik had simply chosen the first name that popped into his head upon seeing the beautiful dog.

“But maybe, ‘Buddy’ is the dog’s purpose,” his mother said.

“You’re sure this is the name you want?” His father asked Klevik.

Klevik nodded.

“So be it. But you have to clean up after it.” His father said.

“Seems to me you both should clean up after him, since he’s for both of you. Besides, it’s easier now that the gravity is on,” Klevik’s mother said softly, “You’ve had the poor thing in stasis for a week.” She looked at the puppy and smiled. “He is a handsome dog.”

And so Buddy came into Klevik’s life. Bright eyes, a toothful grin, and reddish blond hair: that was Buddy the golden retriever. The cost to bring him to the asteroid was astronomical. The pleasure he brought Klevik’s family more than made up for it. Despite his initial reaction to the name, his father grew to like it as it suited the dog’s playful nature.

It was a good life. In many ways Klevik’s father was a visionary. He foresaw the lax protections in the Belt, the loose black market economy that allowed the mining industry to function, and where he could both legitimize and exploit his position. But Klevik’s father, unlike Klevik’s mother, was not born in the Belt. He was born on Mars. Klevik’s father had fled that planet, after having everything his parents had worked for ripped out from under him by the new government during the Mars Colony Revolt. He was not going to ever let himself be put in a position of uncertainty again.

A year after that Christmas, Klevik’s father tossed a ball against a bulkhead and Buddy snatched it in midair to bring it to him. As the dog stood up to face Klevik’s father, sitting in his new favorite chair in his study, he grasped Buddy by the face and studied the dog’s eyes intently. Buddy’s tail wagged in great sweeps as Klevik’s father smiled and said “Buddy’s Eye.”

“What?” Klevik’s mother asked.

“His eyes look like our home when we approach from the far side dock, that light brown dust circle. I’ve been thinking of a name for a while now. This is our home as well as a base of operations. It’s where we’re safe. I’ve been trying to find something mysterious or majestic to name it but what I think of always sounds so pretentious,” he laughed. “But I’ve got it: We will call our home Buddy’s Eye.”

“What about striking terror into the hearts of people? Or some academic name inspiring hope?” she chided.

“Now I’m thinking a little misdirection might be in order,” he winked at her.

***

 

If you liked this preview of the story, please buy it on Kindle or use the donate button above to get the rest!

I Wroted You a Fiction.

0

Special thanks to Joel Watson and Wil Wheaton for the feedback.

Like all people who dabble in the writering of word usements, sometimes something strikes me and I want to write it down. For most of the writing I do that I am compiling into book form, it’s funny stories or anecdotes that are deeply grounded in my experiences.  But I’ve been branching out recently into more pure fiction. This brief bit takes place in a larger world I sometimes explore. 

I’ll be up front about the fact that it’s derivative. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where you’re not going to be told the inciting incident and it’s likely even the characters themselves don’t understand it fully. But I was entranced with the idea of, in a catastrophe, the tension between the slowing of the inertia of civilized society and the rise of simple survivalism. So a lot of the stories in this world are of that idea.

Please to enjoy, Internet.

 

***

 

A dozen or so miles away from safety and security, Lockhart was growing increasingly pissed off at the Corporal with the machine gun. The smell of what had just happened was only making things worse. It should dissipate, the whiff of a shot fired. Against the fierce cold and the weeks long omnipresent smell of ozone, the unique tinge of a modern military round was stuck in James Lockhart’s nose and triggering in his sudden focus an increasing rage.

Three weeks. Three weeks, and this is what it’s been reduced to.

This fuckhead is more scared than you are, he thought as his eyes focused intently on the soldier’s belt. Arms crossed over his head, he finished the thought: remember how humans act in times of stress. The rage had to be shelved. It wasn’t relevant. Only the focus was.

“It was wrong of me to step forward,” Lockhart said calmly, “I’m not armed. My hands are on my head. I’m going to slowly take a step back.” The belt was taut against the corporal’s body, oddly scarce of any holsters or packs or ammo storage you would normally envision on a soldier. A foot slid softly on the dirty asphalt in a backwards motion, the shoe making a track in the grime. Carefully Lockhart pulled the other foot back and stood, shrugging slowly as if making a point that his hands were locked across the top of his head.

The soldier repeated his earlier command, “Sir you will re-enter your vehicle and proceed to the left. Approximately three miles down that road you will be guided to the refugee camp where you will be processed.”

Never get out of the boat, absolutely god damned right, the quote from that bleak movie came unbidden to Lockhart’s mind.

It’d all gone south when the poor visibility had led to the soldier announcing the presence of the road block with an initial shot in the air. It augured into the ground when, the initial shot unheard, Lockhart had hopped out of his truck waving, and approached the soldier to talk. The headlight beams that blasted into the misted air somehow stuck and became a soft wall when the shocking POP of the soldier’s second shot deafened him. Deafened him except for perhaps the inaudible but tactile sensation of the bullet crossing just to the left of Lockhart’s head.

Time stopped. Nothing but white mist, green and brown trees, and a road the color of bruises.

The realization hit that the soldier had been saying something after the initial warning shot. Something unheard during what he thought was a mutual relief at seeing another person, even an armed soldier. In that abrupt moment of halted time, there came the further realization that he was simply a threat easily discarded. The same went for the Gunnar and Target, the dogs in his truck.

The itching sensation of the sprinkling salted rain running into his eyes and ears returned as he stood in upright supplication before the soldier. He felt like an idiot, staring at some ridiculous military outfit belt. A belt assigned to a national guardsman who was protecting a world that would coast on momentum for months hence.

Deep breath.

“Corporal I am not arguing with your order, I repeat I am unarmed and I am not a threat to you. I have two Golden Retrievers and a small amount of food and water in my truck but no weapons. I’m basically going to stand here looking at the ground until you lower your weapon.”

After a pause, the corporal shifted his stance in a jerking motion, which Lockhart thought looked comically like an offensive line trying to draw a foul in an NFL game. He stood motionless. The soldier’s weapon lowered slowly. The soldier earlier that day had nearly come to a firefight with a troupe of would be survivalists and wasn’t eager to take another life if he could help it.

“The best possible thing for you to do,” the corporal said clearly, “is to please do as I say and head to the refugee camp.”

My only chance, Lockhart thought. Make eye contact. He raised his head to meet the soldier’s eyes. Jesus, just a kid, he thought. And scared at that.

“I get that,” He replied, “I do. You’ve been given orders to divert everyone to the camp. But please listen to me. A few miles up the road I have a lot of land and a home. A weekend house I built for myself and my wife. It has food and electricity, enough to last a while. If you just—“

“Where’s your wife?” came the soldier’s rebuttal.

The wave of grief was unexpected, even as the soldier’s words hit and he knew they were a logical challenge to his statement. James Lockhart breathed again deep and clear and with a cleansing effect. That one breath was audible and went without incident, no coughing or labor.

“She was in the city.” He said. “We lived outside on the edge. I worked at home.” Unbidden, his hands left the top of his head and dropped to his sides. One question had drained him. His body almost accepted the possible consequence.

The corporal kept his weapon pointed just off his target. “You understand what’s happened?”

Lockhart had spent the past 2 weeks getting here. Again the rage climbed up and hinted just how close the mania was to the surface. He’d held a 16 year old girl in his arms while she bled to death. Killed what looked like a deranged father in a business suit who’d gone after Gunnar and Target just because they were animals he thought he could get for his family to eat.

“I do.” Deep down the temptation to argue he knew far better than a military lackey on guard duty pushed itself on the rage wave to the front of his brain. He looked down again for a moment while the corporal watched him, “I do.” He looked up in challenge, “Do you?”

“Power failed about a week and a half ago. We’ve got very little if any control of the valley. You know I could let you go to wherever, and maybe you have a generator or something, and the very first time you turn on a light at night the looters will see it for miles. I’m here for a reason and that’s to get people into the camp for their own protection.”

“I have a small observatory at the house,” Lockhart replied calmly, “I was…I am an amateur astronomer. The house itself was designed not to create light pollution. The window covers are metal to prevent the house being broken into but they also block internal light from getting out. Look I know—“

The third shot like the first was straight up in the air, executed with precision by the soldier in a quick upward motion and shot followed by the weapon now once again pointing squarely at Lockhart’s head.

“You’ll have an answer for everything I say. Now pay attention. Get in the car, go to the camp.”

“Every bit of food I eat at the goddamn refugee camp is food away from someone who actually needs it,” Lockhart screamed, “And my dogs, do you think they will have food for them? I do, fucking just up the road from here. By following your idiotic fucking orders you’re not just killing us you’re killing people in the camp!”

The soldier calmly shifted his weapons aim to the left, into the car.

“In five seconds I will kill one of the dogs. Get in the car. Turn right. Go to the camp.”

If rage is ruling a bleak place, impotent rage is being a subject there. Lockhart turned slowly and went to the truck. Gunnar and Target were already agitated due to the gunshots and he barely stopped them from bolting out of the cab as he opened the door. He shoved them back roughly, more so than needed to drive home the point he wasn’t playing.

Twelve miles by road, probably 8 or 9 as the crow flies he thought. Easily 24 hour’s worth of travel in heavy woods with the dogs if he had to walk it off the roads. And it looked like he would have to, at least for a while. It meant abandoning the truck. But he knew, knew, the house was secure just a bit away. At Cynda’s insistence, out of her fear of being snowed in, they’d set up solar and wind power to charge the batteries to power the place; An almost hippy-esque effort to be green when the phrase “off the grid” was an affectation. The grid was always on.  Why wouldn’t it be?  And if not, only down for a few days.  They’d maybe overbuilt out of her fear. He’d been so proud the day he’d slowly cut off each power supply to show how another took its place to placate her fears.

The odds of that being enough to run the freezer after only two weeks without power were more than zero, never mind the dried food that was there in abundance, and the well for water. In the camp, he and the dogs would face a cramped and slow starvation. At the house they faced slower starvation, but with heat and warmth and comfort. And in a place they knew, and had built themselves.  Himself now, his mind said. Just me and the dogs.

He shoved the car into drive. Fuck it, Lockhart thought, I’ll ditch a mile down the road, out of sight. There was still enough food and water in the cab to last a day.

The truck slowly turned past the lone soldier and his station, the sunlight starting to fade with the exception of the glow on the opposite horizon. Behind him, down the way he had come, Lockhart saw headlights in the far distance.